Ex-Morgan Stanley adviser ran Ponzi scheme, caused $2M in investor losses: SEC

A former Morgan Stanley adviser ran a Ponzi plan and bilked his consumers out of hundreds of thousands of bucks — cash that was applied to repay previously victims and address private bills this kind of as Tesla auto payments, according to the feds.

The SEC reported the adviser — identified as Shawn E. Excellent of Wilmington, North Carolina — specific “novice investors” in the scheme, which include retirees and a single mom with younger kids and minimal profits. He allegedly certain the purchasers to transfer revenue to his personal financial institution account.

Great purportedly swindled his shoppers out of at the very least $4.8 million in money for the duration of the scheme, which he ran from late 2012 by way of at minimum February 2022 and led to more than $2 million in losses.

In a criticism filed in federal courtroom, the SEC alleged that Good used at minimum $13,000 in stolen cash to make payments towards his Tesla Product 3, $23,000 toward his Alfa Romeo Stelvio and close to $800,000 toward excellent credit card charges.

Excellent despatched some $110,000 of the unwell-gotten revenue out in Venmo payments to many others with eyebrow-raising subject lines — which bundled “because youre pretty,” “Hotel for Destiny,” “Nailz” and “shopping,” in accordance to the criticism.

“Good told customers that he would use these resources to spend in land improvement initiatives and tax-totally free North Carolina point out or municipal bonds on their behalf,” the SEC’s criticism suggests.

“Good also told the consumers that these investments were being ‘low-risk’ and would shell out returns of among 6% and 10% around a few-month or 6-thirty day period terms, nevertheless Great hardly ever offered consumers with prospectuses or prepared agreements to validate these promised returns and other representations,” the grievance adds.

Bloomberg was initial to report on the SEC grievance.

The SEC noted that a single shopper, identified as “Investor 5,” was a “divorced mom of two youthful little ones who acquired close to $1.9 million in her divorce settlement in early 2020.”

“Investor 5 exclusively informed Excellent that her settlement was all the revenue that she had and would be her principal source of income with which to treatment for herself and her two youthful youngsters,” the filing claimed.

Morgan Stanley fired Superior in February 2022 for refusing to cooperate with an interior probe into his alleged misdeeds, in accordance to the SEC.

A Morgan Stanley spokesperson confirmed Excellent is “no for a longer period employed” by the financial institution. 

“The perform alleged in the criticism is plainly unacceptable,” the spokesperson stated in a statement. “We are currently examining the subject, which affects a compact quantity of customers, and are cooperating with the SEC and other federal government authorities.”

The SEC is searching for an injunction in opposition to Very good as effectively as the “disgorgement of unwell-gotten gains,” amid other legal treatments.